The book’s 400-odd pages of near-hysterical orotundity can roughly be broken down into the following sequence of propositions:

1) The democratic nation-state basically operates like a criminal cartel, forcing honest citizens to surrender large portions of their wealth to pay for stuff like roads and hospitals and schools.

2) The rise of the internet, and the advent of cryptocurrencies, will make it impossible for governments to intervene in private transactions and to tax incomes, thereby liberating individuals from the political protection racket of democracy.

3) The state will consequently become obsolete as a political entity.

4) Out of this wreckage will emerge a new global dispensation, in which a “cognitive elite” will rise to power and influence, as a class of sovereign individuals “commanding vastly greater resources” who will no longer be subject to the power of nation-states and will redesign governments to suit their ends.

Point 1 is roughly Olsen’s thesis. That the state is the system by which special interests plunder us all.

2 and 3 are really Marx. The state of technology determines social relations. Change the tech and you’ll change the relations.

4 is just a reversion to Olsen but with different people using a different form of state and or governance to plunder.

“Terrified” residents of a housing complex clad in similar flammable panels to Grenfell tower are facing a bill of £2m to make their homes safe after the building’s owner said it was not its responsibility to pay.

The freehold is owned by a company owned by the family trust of the multi-millionaire property mogul Vincent Tchenguiz, and its property agent has told residents that work recladding the Citiscape complex in Croydon will begin “once full funds are in place”.

The government told the agent to remove the cladding five months ago and Sajid Javid, the housing, communities and local government secretary, last month suggested the landlord was responsible for ensuring residents’ safety.

But freeholder Proxima GR Properties has insisted that it is not obliged to cover the costs of the work, warning leaseholders in the 93 apartments that the bill will increase if they delay payment.

Staff at an exclusive private members’ club co-owned by the Tory donor Lord Ashcroft have been asked to take a cut in their basic pay in return for a share of the service charge, in a move that could leave low-paid workers vulnerable while reducing the company’s tax payments.

Workers at the Devonshire Club in London, where members pay £2,400 a year for access to a 68-room boutique hotel, brasserie and champagne bar, were asked last month if they would take a formal cut to the legal minimum wage.

They were promised that their total pay would be topped up to the current level using money from the service charges automatically added to customers’ bills and distributed via a system called a tronc.

Although staff will save on national insurance in the short term under the scheme, cutting their contributions will affect statutory protections such as redundancy pay, maternity or paternity pay, or the state pension. Money from a tronc also cannot be included in staff contracts, potentially leaving staff vulnerable to a pay cut.

If the amount must be paid – if it’s not a tip therefore, but it is a service charge – then NI is payable on the distribution.

If it really is a tip, not a service charge, then the management don’t get to decide upon the distribution, the money already belongs to the staff.

The report also found that whether or not a person is sentenced to death has more to do with where the crime was committed than the crime itself. Seventy-four percent of the executions carried out in 2017 took place in just four states: Texas, Arkansas, Florida, and Alabama.

After the couple had a son together through IVF at the clinic in 2008, a number of embryos were frozen and they signed agreements annually for these to remain in storage.
In October 2010, the mother handed IVF Hammersmith a ‘consent to thaw’ form, forged with ARB’s signature. On the basis of this document, an embryo was thawed and successfully implanted.
‘Unwanted child’
The father said his ex-partner’s dishonesty resulted in the birth of his daughter, an “unwanted child”.
“It’s a very, very difficult situation for me. A beautiful child, a child that everyone would want, a child that I love. But also a child that has brought us so much pain.”
He argued that the clinic should pay for the cost of her upbringing, including private school fees, holidays, refurbishing her bedroom and her wedding.

Isn’t it a basic of English law that having a healthy child simply cannot be a tort which leads to damages?

I dimly recall some case where a women went in for an abortion, they took out only one of two embryos, the second one was born and she could get no damages?

A 12-year-old girl who was pressured by an online paedophile into sending topless photos of herself has been told she could now face criminal charges.
Despite by groomed by the online predator, the schoolgirl is now facing a police investigation for sending an indecent image.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be continually inventing new strict liability offences?

Young black people are nine times more likely to be locked up in England and Wales than young white people, according to Ministry of Justice analysis.

The official exploratory study also shows that young black people are more likely to be identified with “gang concerns” and be considered a risk to others when being sentenced than any other ethnic group.

Is it because young black people are more likely to be in gangs or is it institutional wacism?

Charlie Gard’s parents have privately expressed their concern after discovering that the lawyer appointed to represent their 11-month-old son in court heads a charity that backs assisted dying.

Victoria Butler-Cole, who speaks on Charlie’s behalf in court, is chairman of Compassion in Dying, a sister organisation to Dignity in Dying which campaigns for a change in the law to make assisted dying legal in the UK. Dignity in Dying used to be called the Voluntary Euthanasia Society.

Nothing like knowing your lawyer truly believes in your case. Of course, if that were necessary then the truly guilty would never get a defence but still, unfortunate.

Last week Bruno Le Maire, the French finance minister, announced that France would set up a special English-language court to handle English-law cases for financial contracts after Britain leaves the European Union.

Most loan and derivative contracts in Europe are written in English law, but Britain’s exit from the European Union raises problems about how they would be enforced outside of Britain.

Obviously, I can see the difference between CapX saying yes they want a piece from me today, or no, they’ve enough from other people so nothing today Tim, and someone getting or not getting a MaccyD shift that day.

But I can’t really see the difference in law.

Anyone? How can we still have freelance work on demand and no zero hours contracts?